Saints & Sinners & Baby Steps

I've spent this wekeend working, as usual it seems, but wishing I were able to go to more of the Saints and Sinners panels. It seems a little twisted that I move down here to be closer to writers and events like Saints and Sinners, and then have to spend the whole time working. I could've done that in Virginia. I could've gone to bed early to get up early in VA. I could've done all that and not had to pay rent either! And I'm scared of cities! I'm scared of being lost in a city and ending up someplace BAD. So why am I here? Thats the question I get asked all the time by anyone who is FROM here, who finds out that I only moved down in August, one year after the catastrophe of Katrina. I hate that question. It encompasses so many things - being miserable with my mother, being afraid of ending up like my mother. Wanting to live soemplace where i can get a drink and not feel like I'm being condemned to eternal hellfire and damnation. Wanting to be around people I love and admire, and who's company I crave. Wanting to be around other writers. Wanting to be able to make mroe money than I could make in VA. Wanting to do mroe creative things. Wanting to feel young for the first time in my life. And what that boils down to is a whole lot of wanting. In a city that is wanting for a lot. It is this I feel guilty about. Because I like it here. Don't get me wrong. I am not immune to the poverty, the scarcity, the neglect, the sadness. But I am finding fuel in the light, the colors, the food, and the music. I am finding more and more that the image refelcted back in widnows and mirrors shows me as I see myself in my mind's eye. There is a congruency of reality and imagination, for me, here, that I don't think I've ever had before. I've had a rough semester. I don't mean to pretend that things have been golden for me either since I moved here. But somehow, all of that has made me grateful for everything. I hadn't really taken the time to love where I'm at right now until I thought I might have to leave it. And hey, now I know my way from my house to the Marigny and back again. I don't feel LOST in this city anymore. And soemhow, I don't feel scared of getting lost anymore. Maybe I'm still a little scared of BEING lost, but hey. Baby steps, right? Here's hoping I don't get smacked back to start just because I didn't say Mother May I.